MOSCOW (Reuters) -Rosneft’s Ryazan oil refinery, one of the largest in Russia, suspended crude processing after a Ukrainian drone attack on November 15, three industry sources told Reuters.
“The plant is expected to remain idle until the end of the month. No (oil product) loadings are planned before December 1,” one of the sources said.
Ryazan Governor Pavel Malkov said on his Telegram channel on Saturday morning that “debris from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) caused a fire at one of the industry facilities”. He did not specify the name of the facility.
Ukraine has ramped up drone attacks deep inside Russia, aiming to knock out oil refineries, depots and pipelines. Ukrainian drones have struck at least 17 major refineries this year.
However, Russia’s oil processing has fallen just 3% this year as refineries averted a steep decline in fuel production by leveraging spare capacity to offset damage from the strikes.
The sources said that the fire forced Ryazan refinery to shut down its main crude distillation unit, which has annual capacity of more than 8 million metric tons, equating to 48% of the plant’s total capacity.
Rosneft did not reply to a request for comment.
A separate crude distillation unit had been halted by an earlier drone attack on October 24, removing 26% of the refinery’s capacity.
Repairs to that unit have yet to be completed and the plant’s remaining units have also been idled, the sources said, though it was not clear whether this was also because of attacks.
The Ryazan refinery suspended sales of petroleum products on the St Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange as of November 15, exchange data showed.
Industry sources said the refinery processed 13.1 million tons of crude in 2024, accounting for 4.9% of Russia’s total refining volumes, and produced 2.2 million tons of gasoline, 3.4 million tons of diesel and 4.3 million tons of fuel oil.
(Reporting by ReutersEditing by David Goodman)
